Spending surges and Income tax falls sharply in November

By | Published: December 21, 2012

In November 2012 current public spending excluding debt interest rose by a lively 7.6% (compared to November 2011). Income tax receipts plunged by 12.3% or by £1.3 billion. For the year to date overall taxes on wealth and income are down by 3.6% on the same period the previous year and current spending continues upwards. Between April and November spending is up by £4.35 billion, whilst total revenue is down by £3.3 billion.

As a result November state borrowing increased by £17.5 billion, a £1.2 billion increase on last year for the same month. It still looks as if high tax rates are helping push revenues down, as output was the same as a year earlier. There is still no evidence of the overall cuts in spending many talk about.

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I am fully expecting the state pension to be means tested by the time I retire. Then the fun starts as the income tax and national insurance payers realise how very little we actually get in return for the huge amount that is extracted from us.

“how very little we actually get in return for the huge amount that is extracted from us”.

Perhaps Wonky Moral Compass you are a little unfair. All those bus lane cameras, speeding cameras, fines for late filing of pointless forms, pointless wars, the satisfaction of the soft PIGIS loans, the transfers to the feckless, the administration of the absurd tax system and all those pointless wind turbines and the PV bling do not come cheap you know.

Even if they are all pointless or much worse and we have to pay for all that pro EU, fake green, ever bigger state indoctrination from the BBC too.

Yes unbelievable thoughts a few years ago, but now even I am not so sure that it will not happen at some stage in the future.

We seem to have gone so far down the line of means testing everything, that anyone who has worked and paid into the system all of their life, and has still managed to hang on to provide a little for themselves seem to be excluded from any help.

Makes you wonder if trying to provide for the future has any future, after all what is the point, those that do not bother to work or provide for themselves, simply get money handed out to them.
What an example for future generations.

Everyone on the public payroll earning more than £30,000 pa should take a 20% pay cut and that includes the fat cats in Local Government and the BBC. Child benefit for 2 youngest children only. But the Govt is too frit to take tough action for fear of being labelled the nasty party again.

Why just over £30K and only a 20% cut? With pensions included they are about 50% over paid at the moment relative to the private sector and deliver far less of any use. They take more sick days, retire earlier and get better pay offs too.

Oh, good grief. How does this explain the borrow and waste of this government? How does this explain public expenditure, mass immigration who flock here for all the free public services and housing because they are destitute. How does this explain Ed Davey’s £2 billion borrow and give away to Africa for wind machines, £13 billion on overseas aid, £17 billion on an EU socialist dictatorship, £80 million on voting for AV or another £80 million on police commissioners that no one wants, £700,000 on a British Bill of Rights report that says the UK should have all the Human Rights Act and more! Go tell your story to Blair, Brown and Balls.

Oliver Cromwell we need a man like you to sort out the useless corrupt world of Westminster.

Government spending and borrowing up, welfare cuts, jobs marginalised by ‘flexibility’ and part time working with the Iain Duncan Smith attempting to blame part time workers and the low paid claiming tax credits as doing marginal jobs as if they have some sort of choice.
Commons data shows that a couple with one child owning their own home and unemployed would have an income of £215.79, bit if one of them found a ‘marginalised’ job their income would fall to £210.08. Make them more desperate to create jobs? Tory MP Alec Shelbrooke calls for welfare cards to stop them from spending money on unnecessary items like booze, fags and gambling and then visiting food banks or freezing. The morality and practicality of this is by the by. With a rise in shop thefts for basic items it is how this government are really thinking. Blaming the working, non working and semi working population for the problems with the economy and deliberately impoverishing families to pay for this. The high tax rates will be VAT. A regressive tax on the poor. Ram it.

I suspect that a lot of these new jobs in the private sector are paying very poorly. So the government will be getting little, if any tax from them, and will be paying out lots in working tax credits and child credits, and other social benefits…

uni,
Its not the Government letting real wages fall, its the effect of competition from emerging nations like India, China and Brazil and the effect of several hunderd thousand keen new arriavls into the Uk every year since 1997
Any ideas how you are going to stop that?

Competition from low wages in China does not effect the wages for companies employing people here. They will not pay above what they can get away with no matter how much profit they make. The taxpayer in effect subsidises these profits with tax credits, benefits and the like to bring the wages up to a liveable level.

Bazman,
Chinese and Indian competition has had a huge effect on wages and prices in the UK over the last 20 years.
Ive spent the last 30 years involved in SME manufacturing and Ive seen wages, profits and the very existance of businesses wrecked by the effct of their cheap imported products.
The other huge downward effect on wages has been the few hundred thousand of new arrivals willing to undercut UK workers encouraged ironically by your beloved Labour Party since 1997.

In manufacturing this is the case. In other industries the workforce are paid the minimum. The economy has only benefited the few and often by being subsidised by the state with the beneficiaries calling for less state interference. Many advanced economies have this problem the clock cannot be reversed as expectations are much higher. Cheap labour was let in to create profits for business and the bangsters lies and fantasy believed by Labour. The welfare system used to facilitate this, as it is today. Poverty on the streets with mega wealthy creaming of the money can only be tolerated so far in Britain. New social cost will have the be borne like more police. Why should anyone take this lying down?

They will continue QE to support the failed policies and to protect the private for profit /public for losses – model of banking. We have no need of a credit creating bankers – maybe a small role if they have unlimited personal liability.

Choices are reportedly – stop monetizing debt and let interest rates rise or we suffer a currency devaluation with further import inflation. That is assuming our fiat is still acceptable to our trading partners.

We could issue fiat cash to individuals and pay down banking debt and reduce the size of the finance sector but that is not painless to the politicians.

And its going to gather apace. This lot are getting/have got as bad as Labour. God help us.
And the banks are moaning about the possible £5b cost of splitting up retail from whoesale – and George Osborne is on their side – and how much did we the taxpayer pump into the Banks? Ring fence the deposits before another crash – given that the banks have failed to disclose all their non performing loans. No, Dave wants to press on with laws to enable gay marriage – real important economy saving issues. He certainly has lost it.

I’m waiting for the aliens to take me off to some place where those who run things know what they’re doing. It’s quite clear that the the Highland Cameroon and Osborne, or Camborne twins here haven’t any idea what to do. They are both barking mad. Who will suffer? Not them, they’ll no doubt have squirrelled their cash and assets away where no-one can get them and built strong walls around their houses. It’s the ordinary people who will be penalised.
Revolution anyone?

So tell me something I didn’t know! This government is INCAPABLE of reducing its spending of OUR money. When it is someone else’s money it is almost impossible not to be terribly generous with it – and so this government is and the one before. It does not matter what colour politicians are they love spending, especially if it does not come out of their pockets. This country will hit the bottom of the pit before we, the people, wake up to the utter indifference and incompetence of those who rule us. Politicians are cutting defence, education, health – just as long as there are no cuts to their salaries, expenses and pensions.

Well what a surprise – I would never have imagined that putting up tax rates to absurd levels would make people think of ways round them, stop working, form service companies or move assets abroad. Who would have thunk that?

Still more money for largely parasitic waste in the state sector I see. I see Lord Patton is blaming almost everyone but himself for the large pay off to the DG, but was it not himself and the trustees who agreed the pay off for failure terms in the contract – and for an existing employee too? – whom, one assumes, was rather good at his job for many years or would not have been offered the top job.

I note that the Royal Opera House for all its qualities is not exactly renowned for running a tight ship and giving the public value for money. We shall see what Tony Hall brings does he have the same pay off terms agreed by the trustees I wonder? First tax halve the top pay and pensions (to private sector levels in say provincial theatre) and fire anyone guilty of pushing the global warming and pro EU propaganda. If then, as I suspect, no one is left just recruit some sensible people instead (preferably with science degrees) and not PPE as Baron Hall of Birkenhead. Still at least he is a northerner I suppose.

Lifelogic–On Arts degrees I well remember that while I was battling (with Natural Science – Pure Chemistry) with lab work and material that was challenging enough when it stood still but which was cutting edge and changing all the time and voluminous in the extreme, a pal (a brilliant chap I am the first to admit) studying at one point 50 years ago the French poets (Baudelaire et al) told me that he had only to write a couple of essays each week, and that anyway (as he confirmed to me in writing recently), “the poets don’t change much and given that I only had to give an opinion it didn’t matter much anyway”. As I say, that was 50 years ago and if anything I imagine the Internet now makes writing an essay on an ancient French poet, on whom opinions fairly settled and documented by now I should have thought, even less of a (lack of) sweat.

The problem I find is that many art graduates often work on pure emotion, gut feelings and the manipulation of others simple emotions. Often with a total lack of understanding of what actually works, what is possible and how the numbers actually stack up. They usually use other people money to do it all with.

Thus we have silly transport schemes like HS2, wind turbines everywhere, no new runways, the evil politics of envy, quack medicine on the NHS, the ERM and EURO structures, the idea that the country can get richer by tax borrow, waste and ever bigger government, the free at the point of rationing NHS and top down nonsense regulation of almost everything. All cheered on by a lefty, big state, fake green, politics of envy and ever pro EU BBC.

Apparently, Patten was worried about paying more money in defending an unfair dismissal case, and any associated compensation. Let’s face it they struggle to manage the BBC effectively so no wonder he is worried about defending a case of unfair dismissal…..

Anti intellectual nonsense. you seem to have no problem with anti global warming theorists with no science background do you? Sensible? The BBC are just following the private sector in large pay offs for failure and looking after the chaps. What we are seeing in the private sector is large pay rises for managers and little or no rise for the rest of the workforce with attacks leading to lower pay and conditions for many. It’s real middle management think, keeping a standing army of unemployed and under employed in order to do this.

Most sensible scientists (not in the pay of the state or the “renewable” subsidy racket) I find think that global warming alarmist is a huge exaggeration. It is clearly propagated for political reasons of tax justification or for pure personal profit.

The ‘sensible’ ones as you call them often have vested interests themselves and little scientific creditability. Even I can take down the ones you seem to hold in esteem and point out that the websites you look at are crackpot.

AS I have said fatalistic religious belief in doing nothing as most of your views are except when proven wrong such as on banking which in the past few years has taken a Damascus type turn around has it not. Lindzen is not credible and has links to right wing institutions and the oil industry. You would not hesitate for one second had he links to wind farms and left ideas. Silly right wing prejudice without basis and the audacity to accuse others of it. Just plain thick in my book.

Perhaps Payoff Pat would have been better advised to keep the DG, especially as the first thing he did was to chop the biggest waster- the woman behind the mega payments for ‘celebrity’ newsreaders and football commentators. He seemed to be a fairly decent TV professional who was operating in a management system which was too big to manage. The behaviour of Jimmy Saville was just an unfortunate sideshow that showed up the flaws.

I believe that however we manage the money, no one person will make a difference. As our globe becomes smaller due to communications and transactions which occur in nano seconds it becomes impossible to take control.
It is fantasy to envisage a time when we can take back all the years and start again on a similar cycle, we are a different mix of beings and competition rules all have loopholes for some to disappear into with large amounts of the brassy stuff ( or symbols of the dug out of the earth ore) . That was when things were more grounded .
In the 21st C we all need necks like birds with a 360 degree turn to look quickly around and fly away when the next con artist strikes.
The crowds will sway developments and survival of the fittest win.
As we swim into another year ,it may be a sensible idea to stop the personality politics as some of the commentors seem determined to do and begin to build our own protective bubble, where we can grow as a new nation.

Do you still wonder why so many of us have given up in despair of your party restoring the economy? Just where has this extra spending been made? Will the pretence of cuts ever end? Another example of the duplicity of Cameron’s and Osborne’s much vaunted expression: “you can’t borrow your way out of a debt cisis”.

It really is time for the Left – and the ‘centre’ right and left to stop denying the logic of the Laffer curve. Tax rates and tax complexity such as we have now are a disincentive. We need tax cuts and tax simplification to stimulate economic activity, and real spending cuts. There is a huge amount to go for. With the opinion polls as they are, Messrs Cameron and Osborne may as well give this a last-minute try, they are headed for defeat as it stands.

You are quite wrong as has been debated many times here before. the first US President to make this argument, to cut taxes and see increasing revenues was Keenedy. Reagan also did so. Thatcher did so with dramatic success and clear results in the UK. There are numerous other examples. Meanwhile the exodus of successful French people is an indicator that the result of increased tax rates will again, be shown to lead to decreased revenues.

The State is deliberately depressing its income tax receipts (1) by reducing income tax on low and middle incomes and (2) thereby incentivising households to live on two small incomes rather than one larger income. So why should we be surprised at the outcome.

Much more serious is the failure to cut current public expenditure. The Autumn Statement sets out measures, including below inflation welfare increases, that will start in 2013. They don’t go as far as I would have liked but it will be difficult in Coalition politics to be tougher in the 2013 budget than trailed in the Autumn Statement.

It therefore looks as if State asset sales will be needed in 2013/14 to carry on with deficit reduction. Lloyds and RBS shares are a must. Any others?

The importance of resuming deficit reduction cannot be over emphasised. The rate of interest on its debt paid by the UK government is creeping upwards and will shortly exceeed 2%. This indicates a loss of confidence by the markets, however slight, in the UK government. We need to prevent any more loss of confidence.

Tolls as a means of financing roads are making a reappearance. No objection but (1) they will probably have little effect in FYR 2013/14 and (2) they should be seen as a special form of tax unless a Concessionaire is appointed.

I am currently trying to decide whether I should be a surgeon or take to the stage so my wife and I both do not have to work. Maybe you could tell us why reducing the benefits such as tax credits to the working population already struggling with low wages, part time working unemployment and then giving large handouts to millionaires is a good thing and who will benefit from this attack on the least wealthy who have to spend all this cash to survive thus helping the economy. Or is this just another silly right wing fantasy of yours that you will not be affected by?

” …………………. giving large handouts to millionaires …………………….” No, just going half way to reducing the top rate of income tax from 50% to the 40% that it was during all of Labour’s time. If a 45% top rate raises more revenue than the 50% rate but less than the revenue that the 40% used to raise, then reducing the top from 45% to 40% would make sense. You accept, do you, that maximising the income tax revenue from top earners makes more sense than futile gestures and sanctimonious posturing?

I don’t want to pontificate about the experiences of workers struggling with low wages because I’ve never been in that situation. However, it could well be that raising the income tax threshold to £10,000 will give them a bigger gain than capping benefits growth to 1%.

I assume that you prefer some people working on low wages and an unemployment rate under 8% to the situation in France, where workers ‘rights’ are entrenched and they have an 11% unemployment rate.

By the way, when are we going to hear Bazman’s plans for cutting the deficit by raising taxes?

The deficit will be cut be investing in infrastructure, education getting rid of the lie that the state does not have a part to play in this by reducing of benefits by cheap labour conservatives like yourself who have never been in a low wage or workless situation whilst letting large corporations and the financial sector bleed the state is not acceptable. Many never even get the chance to earn 10k or two hundred quid a week so don’t try that fantasy and the fantasy that cutting the rates for the top earners of which there are very few is somehow justifiable by the dubious fact that it increases revenue. Going after legal tax scams would also do that and we seem to hear little about that. Ram it.

Baz,
The merry go round of many years of ever higher taxes and higher Government spending and borrowing has got us to where we are now.
A huge long term debt and an annual deficit of £150 billion a year, yet your answer is to “invest in more infrastructure spending” to reduce the deficit, without any other cuts.
And you accuse others of fantasy.
Hilarious

I’ve been saying here and elsewhere for more than a year that the government has never had any intention of making genuinely large cuts in public spending. Like their bonfire of the quangos, it makes for good headlines (or bad, depending on your point of view) but the reality is a huge disappointment for anyone wishing to see the level of state wastage of our money and interference in our lives decrease sharply. One of these days the markets will wake up to the laughable reality of ‘austerity Britain’ and then we shall pay a heavy price.

And the Andrew Mitchell case again shows Mr. Cameron’s appalling lack of judgement in almost every matter involving people he knows. Apparently he was aware that the CCTV record disagreed with what the police statement said, and yet he still let his friend and colleague resign, instead of standing behind him until matters were fully resolved one way or the other.

Encounter the state at any level and you find a culture which predominantly, at best, tolerates the private sector as a cash cow. It prefers to tolerate big beast companies which have some of the same characteristics. It loathes small businesses.

There is a low intensity war waged by the state in which, for example, the poor and small businesses are collateral damage.

About John Redwood

John Redwood won a free place at Kent College, Canterbury, He graduated from Magdalen College Oxford, has a DPhil and is a fellow of All Souls College. A businessman by background, he has been a director of NM Rothschild merchant bank and chairman of a quoted industrial PLC.